The Sonoma County non-profit Land Paths, founded a dozen years ago to help connect urban residents to the natural world around them, is finding that goal taking them in some unexpected new directions.

Landpaths' mission is "to foster a love of the land in Sonoma County," a broad goal that underlies their many day-to-day activities. The common thread among them, observes Executive Director Craig Anderson, is a shared appreciation for the natural world, and a willingness to listen.

 LandPaths offers both a busy list of hikes and other activities , and a wealth of volunteer opportunities such as creating new hiking trails (below).

They also have a lovely online photo gallery of scenes from Sonoma County's outdoors.

  Here's an online review of Glko Wellman's Guiding Their Way -- Day by Day. 

Children today are born into a very different society than their parents or grand-parents, observes Glo Wellman (left) . But the basic nature of the kids themselves is essentially the same as it has been for generations.

In addition to teaching Child Development at Santa Rosa Junior College Glo Wellman has been a long-time staff members at the California Parenting Institute.

The rise and surprisingly rapid fall of fly fishing on the Russian and other northern California rivers is told in a new documentary film, Rivers of a Lost Coast.

As a boy, Justin Coupe, co-director of Rivers of a Lost Coast, was taught fly fishing by his father, a lifelong angler.   So after finishing college, with an eye toward making a film about that subculture, he returned to the Russian and other northern California rivers to reacquaint himself with his subject. Doing so, he says, reaffirmed his determination to capture this slice of regional history while the first-person participants were still on hand to talk about it.

One of the unexpected stories within Rivers of A Lost Coast involves the long and bitter rivalry between two of the region's most accomplished fishermen, Bill Schaadt left) and Tom Linden.

 See the trailer for Rivers of a Lost Coast:

 

The quiet west county town of Graton is a small community with a surprisingly vigorous and varied history.

Noted in passing in Lesa Tanner's Graton history is the town's longstanding openness toward minorities, from an African-American owned cleaners back in 1910, to the two oriental families who ran Paul's Market in the 1930s. Today, Tanner observes, that same spirit is shown in the way Graton has supported the Day Labor Center.

Despite its brand name, this apple crate label comes from the Pelletti Fruit Co. in Graton.

Today, in a largely unseen way, Graton stands out for its unconventional approach to managing the community's wastewater.